Tool #5: Re-thinking the value of design processes and outputs

The processes and outputs that designers generate do not only produce monetary value – but also honour, prestige, recognition and much more but there are other aspects that can be valued beyond the restrictive frame of both money and fame.

a) What kind of social relations does your project/s create? What are their intrinsic qualities and potentials?

b) What forms of care does your project produce? How does it contribute “to maintain, continue, and repair our ‘world’ so that we can live as well as possible in it?”

c) What kind of society and social imaginary does your work produce?

d) How does your practice/process/output relate to the environment?

e) What are the chains of interdependence your work is tied up with? Who is gaining what? Who is losing out? Whose labour is it relying on – and is this in far away or hidden places?

f) Does your work create forms of solidarity and mutuality?

g) How is your work producing and distributing monetary and non-monetary wealth?

h) What educational aspects does your work involve?

i) How does your project deal with questions of justice and equality, for example, in relation to class, gender, race, ability?